(15/30) The Deadly Dance (23 page)

After he had left, Agatha luxuriated in a long hot bath. Then, putting on a dressing-gown, she went back downstairs and put a packet of spaghetti bolognaise into the microwave for her dinner. When she had finished eating, she rose and let the cats out into the garden for a little. Then she let them in again and locked up and went back to bed.

But sleep was a long time coming. Somewhere out there in the world was Felicity Felliet and Agatha was sure she would be hell-bent on revenge.

Charles called early next morning with Gustav to return her car and said he would be back that evening and that there must be something restorative in police coffee, for his cold had completely disappeared.

Agatha spent the day getting a complete facial and followed tt up by getting her hair tinted brown.

Then she returned to find Charles parked outside, waiting for her. Charles was always amazed that Agatha’s foul diet of microwaved meals left her with thick glossy hair and perfect skin.

“Forgot my key. I see handsome Boyd’s outside, sitting at a tittle table of goodies.”

“The village women spoil him. What now?”

“Maybe we’d better go and see George; least we can do.”

George Felliet was furious with them. Charles had to listen co a passionate tirade about snakes in the grass and false friends. Waiting until George had exhausted himself, Charles said mildly, ’You have to face up to the fact that she’s guilty.”

George suddenly collapsed into a chair. “She hated leaving the manor,” he said. “Even as a little girl, she couldn’t understand that the money was running out. Kept demanding expensive things—clothes, the latest in computers, that sort of thing. But I never thought she would go this far.”

“And you haven’t heard from her?”

“Not a word.”

Crystal Felliet came into the house and glared at them. “Get out!” she shouted.

“But Crystal…” Charles began.

“OUT!” she screamed.

Agatha and Charles left hurriedly. In the car, Agatha said, “Do you think they’d hide their daughter if she went to them?”

“Hard to say. I think that’s an unmarked police car across the road.”

“Are you staying the night?”

“I’d like to, but I’ve got farm business to attend to. YouTl be all right with the police guard on the door.”

In the psychiatric prison the next morning, Emma Comfrey continued to wander about talking to herself. Emma’s brain had cleared up a few days before, but she continued to act mad because she did not want to be judged fit to stand trial.

In the past few days she had managed to keep up the pretence of insanity during interviews with various psychiatrists. But that afternoon, she was presented with a new psychiatrist, a woman with small eyes and glossy brown hair. She reminded Emma forcibly of Agatha Raisin—Agatha Raisin, whom Emma blamed for all her troubles.

Emma dribbled and smiled vacantly while all the time her mind was racing. Convinced she could not break through the wall of Emma’s insanity, the psychiatrist left, and was replaced with a nurse.

“Now, dearie,” said the nurse. “Take your medicine.”

She held out a little dish with a few pills on it.

Emma stared at her vacantly. “Here. I’ll help you. Here’s the glass of water. Here’s the first pill.”

Emma’s eyes drifted past her to her tray containing a syringe of tranquillizer, used for subduing patients who turned violent. Emma had seen such a one used on a patient just the other day. She took the glass of water and threw it in the nurse’s face, grabbed the tranquillizer syringe while clamping her hand over the nurse’s mouth, and plunged the needle in. She held on grimly until at last she felt the nurse go limp in her arms.

She removed the nurse’s white coat and outer clothes and shoes, stripped off her hospital garments and put them all on, pinning the nurse’s identification card on her white coat.

Then she dragged the nurse over to the bed and rolled her onto it and covered her right up with the blankets.

Emma was not considered any risk, so there was no guard outside the door. She picked up the nurse’s clipboard and made her way out, keeping her head down as if studying it as she made her way hurriedly along the corridor. She saw a doctor approaching who knew her and dived into a room which turned out to be a pharmacy.

There was a male nurse on duty. “I need a couple more tranquillizer syringes,” said Emma briskly. He reluctantly put down the newspaper he had been reading, unlocked a cabinet and gave her two syringes and then produced a book. “Sign here.” He had not recognized her, but nurses in a psychiatric prison came and went.

Emma glanced down at the laminated card on her bosom and signed “Jane Hopkirk,” the nurse’s name.

She put the syringes in her pocket and felt a key at the bottom of the pocket. The corridor outside was empty, so she took out the key and looked at it. A locker key.

Where would the lockers be? Then she nearly laughed out loud. On the wall at the end of the corridor was a plan of the hospital.

She could smell lunch being served. Hopefully that would mean that most of the nurses would be in the canteen, leaving the orderlies to take round the patients’ meals.

In the locker room, she located the right one from the number on the key. Inside was a coat and a handbag. Inside the handbag were car keys.

Emma put on the coat and took the handbag. She then walked down the stairs and briskly out through the front door.

She went round to the car-park and flicked the remotf control round all the cars until she saw one flash its security lights.

It was the latest Volvo. Miss Hopkirk must have monev, thought Emma. She could never afford this on a nurse’s salary.

There was a security pass on the windscreen, so she drove past the security guard with a wave and a smile. Once she was well out on the road, she parked at the side and rummaged through the handbag. The wallet contained over one hundred pounds. In a side pocket of the bag, to her delight, she found a pin number. She drove on to the nearest cash machine, put in a card and drew out two hundred.

They would come for her when she had done what she had to do, but Agatha Raisin would no longer be alive.

She left the car outside Mircester and bought a bicycle and then began to cycle towards Carsely through the back roads heavy with autumn foliage.

PC Boyd stretched out his long legs. The day had turned sunny again. He felt very sleepy, full of tea, home-made scones and cake.

A slim young woman wearing a business suit and with a silk scarf over her head, approached him.

“I wonder if you would like to try some of my home-made wine,” she said. “Agatha’s sent me from the office to pick up some papers for her. I have the keys.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Do have a glass. I’m very proud of it.”

“Maybe just one. Don’t tell anyone. I’m not supposed to drink on duty.”

“I’ve brought a glass.” The bottle had a screw top. She unscrewed it and poured him a glass.

Boyd watched as she unlocked the door and switched off the burglar alarm. Then, when the door had closed, he smelt the glass of wine. It smelt terribly sweet. He didn’t want to offend her, so he poured the contents off into a bed of winter pansies and settled back in his chair. The sun was warm, he was full of home-made goodies and in no time at all, he fell asleep.

He did not hear the door behind him open a little and then close.

Felicity Felliet went back into the kitchen and sat down to wait. She had put a heavy drug into that wine. She was glad Jeremy had left the keys to Agatha’s cottage with her. The man he had hired to gas Agatha had got two sets cut, sending one to Jeremy for safekeeping in case the first attempt failed. And the silly bitch had forgotten to change her alarm code.

The cats were staring at her. Felicity opened the garden door and they ran out. She had tailed Agatha and had noticed her going into the village store. Wouldn’t be long now. “I’m doing this for you, Jeremy, you loser, and to get rid of that bitch who made me lose my home,” she muttered.

Agatha left the village stores carrying two cans of cat food. Her pampered cats preferred real food, but they would need to make do this one time with the commercial stuff. Agatha was tired after answering more and more questions. She suddenly decided to go and visit Mrs. Bloxby and tell her everything that had happened. The vicar’s wife listened in amazement to Agatha’s story.

“I always thought that intuition of yours was a gift from God, Mrs. Raisin.”

Agatha looked uncomfortable, as she always did when God was mentioned.

“Felicity Felliet is still out there.”

“I think you’ll be safe as long as the police keep a guard on you. Where can she run to?”

“Anywhere,” said Agatha gloomily. “I bet you that one has six passports.”

Emma had stopped to buy a hunting knife. Her brain felt amazingly clear and logical. But as she left the bicycle at the top of the road down into Carsely and began to walk, she could feel nagging little voices at the back of her brain. One of them belonged to her late husband. “You are a frump, Emma,” he was saying. “Haven’t you anything else to wear?”

She ignored the voices and walked doggedly on. She planned to stab Agatha with one of the tranquillizer syringes and then slowly cut her up. When she turned into Lilac Lane, she stopped short at the sight of the policeman, but he appeared to be asleep. She walked forwards and edged past him.

Emma was about to ring the bell, but she decided to try the door first. To her delight it opened. Agatha was at home.

She walked through to the kitchen.

A strange blonde young woman was sitting at the kitchen table.

Felicity looked at Emma and Emma looked at Felicity. Felicity had only seen grainy newspaper photographs of Agatha on the microfiche in the library. This woman with the hunting knife in her hand must be her prey.

Emma sprang towards her and Felicity shot her in the chest. After Emma had fallen, she coolly fired two bullets into Emma’s head.

PC Boyd awoke with a start. A voice on his radio was calling him. “Yes?” he asked.

“Be on the look-out. Emma Comfrey’s escaped.”

“When?”

“About an hour and a half ago.” “Roger.”

And then Boyd heard shots from inside the house. The door was standing open. He rushed in. He saw the woman who had given him the wine standing over a body on the floor. He flung himself on her as she fired and the shot went wild. He pinned her down and got the handcuffs on her.

Then he radioed for help.

As he went outside, his legs were shaking. He was in deep trouble. They would ask how both women had got past him and he would need to say he had been asleep. He pulled a photograph out of his pocket. The woman with the gun was Felicity Felliet and he hadn’t recognized her. But, wait a bit, she had that scarf over her head. I bet that wine was drugged, he thought. Please let it be drugged. Of course it was.

The police could not keep Agatha out of the papers after that. All those attempts on her life were headline news. Agatha’s first thought was to flee to some hotel and wait till the fuss died down, but then she thought publicity was just what the agency needed, and so she bragged about her prowess on television, on the radio and in the newspapers.

Reading the accounts, Roy and Charles found no mention of their names.

First Charles phoned up and sarcastically asked how it felt to have done it all on her own. Flustered, Agatha began to reply, but then he hung up on her.

Then came Roy at his most waspish. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in PR, you old hag,” he said. “Any publicity helps. You seem to want your friends just when you need them and otherwise you’re not prepared to help or go out of your way. You’re a disgrace!”

Agatha fumed for days. They were both being ridiculous. After all, the solution had been her idea. Anyway, she couldn’t spare any time to worry about them. The detective agency was so busy she was having to turn down clients.

Bill Wong called one evening. “Well, it’s all sewn up. Felicity was simply using Jeremy and told us all we need to know about him and his operations.”

“The thing that puzzles me,” said Agatha, “is why he should send a death threat to the daughter he was so fond of?”

“Felicity told us he was prepared to give Cassandra a scare. He said once her mother was shot, she’d soon get over it. I think Jeremy was obsessed with Felicity. When he wound up his import/export agency, he decided it would be better if Felicity took a job abroad so that there would be no connection between the two of them.”

“But the police checked out his business. They surely heard about the blonde secretary and wanted to contact her.”

“Felicity had been working under an assumed name and papers. She was working under the name of Susan Fremantle.The real Susan Fremantle died last year in a car crash and her home was burgled during the funeral. Jeremy probably bought the papers for Felicity from some villain or other. I’m not quite clear why you managed to jump to the idea that Jeremy had got someone to stand in for him.”

“It was one little word—reunion. That’s what the French call their AA meetings. The fake Jeremy told the desk clerk that he was going to a reunion. A friend of mine had been talking about some handsome man who had sobered up and from the description it sounded like Jeremy. But it wasn’t. I knew Jeremy wasn’t an alcoholic, I mean at his age it would have shown on his face and figure.”

“You’ve had all the luck of the amateur,” said Bill.

“I,” said Agatha Raisin stiffly, “am a professional now.”

It was only when the dark days of November began to draw to a close that she began to badly miss Charles and Roy. Business had suddenly gone quiet, as if everyone had decided to save for Christmas, and all the lucrative would-be divorcees planned to leave finding out about their adulterous spouses until after the festive season.

Miss Simms had handed in her notice, saying she was better off at home with her baby daughter because she didn’t like leaving her with a baby-sitter the whole time.

Patrick Mullen had suggested Agatha hire a woman detective, Sally Fleming, who had already worked for two other agencies. Sally was small, neat and dark and highly efficient. Instead of the succession of temps, Agatha had also hired a Mrs. Edie Frint as secretary, a widow with impeccable qualifications.